Reducing the Pressure at Home

Over the past few years, I’ve been working on several projects that have opened my eyes to some things about teenagers and the world they are growing up in. After more than three decades in youth ministry, years of coaching high school athletes, and raising two kids of my own, I’ve always felt like I had a pretty good understanding of what teenagers were experiencing. I thought I understood their world, could speak their language, and had a decent sense of how the culture around them was shaping them. But lately, I’ve become increasingly aware of one particular aspect of their experience that seems to have intensified, and I’m convinced it is having a deeper impact on them than many of us realize.

Our kids are carrying an enormous amount of pressure. Of course, pressure isn’t new. Teenagers have always dealt with expectations from parents, teachers, coaches, friends, and themselves. But something feels different today. Many teens feel like they are constantly being evaluated and constantly expected to perform. Their sense of worth can become closely connected to what they accomplish, produce, or achieve. One young adult I talked to about this said something that stopped me in my tracks: “Everything that is an output from a young person is tied to some sort of approval.”

Think about that for a minute. If our kids begin to believe that everything they do is connected to whether or not they will receive approval, they can easily begin to believe that they have to perform in order to be accepted. They have to produce in order to be valued. They have to succeed in order to feel worthy. And there seem to be fewer and fewer places where they can simply be. School has expectations. Sports have performance metrics. Social media has likes, followers, views, and comments. Friendships can feel like popularity contests. College admissions bring pressure to build the perfect résumé. Even hobbies can become another opportunity to compete. Life can begin to feel like one long evaluation.

Many teenagers and young adults describe the pressure to perform as one of the heaviest burdens they carry. I recently talked with a mom of an 11th grader who was nearly in tears as she described what this pressure was doing to her son. He was trying to keep up with everything being asked of him, but the weight of it all was becoming too much.

Now, I know what some of you might be thinking: “What’s wrong with pushing my kids to perform? They are going to have to learn how to perform eventually. You have to perform to survive in the real world!” On some level, I agree. As a former athlete, longtime high school football coach, and naturally competitive person, I’m all for working hard, setting goals, developing discipline, and pursuing excellence. As a dad, I want my kids to use their gifts, work hard, and become the best versions of themselves they can be.

There is nothing wrong with encouraging our kids to work hard.

The question is: At what cost? I’ve known kids who were pushed so hard in sports that they walked away from something they once loved before they even finished high school. I’ve known students who felt enormous pressure to perform academically so they could get into the “right” college, only to arrive there exhausted and discover they didn’t even want to be there. And if you listen carefully to young adults, you will often hear a deeper question underneath their stories:

• Was it worth it?
• Was the achievement worth the anxiety?
• Was the scholarship worth the pressure?
• Was the championship worth the damaged relationships?
• Was getting into the right school worth missing so much of life along the way?

Those questions should make us pause. As parents, we need to think carefully about what success actually looks like for our kids. Because if we unintentionally teach our kids that success equals performance, we may be helping them achieve impressive things while simultaneously loading them down with emotional baggage that can follow them for years.

One young adult I interviewed put it this way: “We equate performance with being a good person.” That is a dangerous place for our kids to live. When performance becomes connected to identity, a bad grade isn't just a bad grade. It becomes, “Maybe I’m not smart.” A poor performance on the field isn't just a bad game. It becomes, “Maybe I’m not good enough.” Being left out by friends isn't simply rejection. It becomes, “Maybe there’s something wrong with me.” Our kids begin measuring their worth by how they stack up against everyone else. And the problem is that there will always be someone who is smarter, faster, stronger, more talented, more popular, more successful, or more accomplished.

So where does that leave everyone else? I believe there is a better way.

We can help our kids reach their potential without making them feel like their worth depends on their performance. I want my kids to do their best, not feel like they have to be the best. Those are two very different goals. Doing your best is about effort, growth, character, and faithfulness. Being the best is about comparison. One asks, “Did I give what I had?” The other asks, “Was I better than everyone else?” Our kids need to know that we value who they are far more than what they accomplish. They need to know that our love isn't earned through good grades, athletic success, college acceptance, popularity, or achievements.

They need to know that home is not another place where they have to perform. As parents, we have an incredible opportunity to either increase the pressure or reduce it. I say we reduce it. Turn down the heat. Let home be a refuge in a world that constantly evaluates them. Let it be a place where they can take a breath, put down the scoreboard, and remember that they are loved simply because they are your kids and, even more importantly, because they are God's creation.

That doesn't mean we stop challenging them. It doesn't mean we remove expectations or allow them to settle for less than they are capable of achieving. It means we learn to challenge without crushing, encourage without comparing, and push without making our kids believe that our love is attached to their performance.

And there's another important distinction: their goals, not ours. That may be one of the hardest things for us as parents. Sometimes our kids' dreams don't look like the dreams we had for them. Sometimes their definition of success is different from ours. Sometimes we have to resist the temptation to live through our kids or make their accomplishments a reflection of our own parenting. Our job isn't to create impressive kids. Our job is to help our kids become healthy, faithful, resilient people who understand who God created them to be. In a world that constantly tells them to prove themselves, what if home was the place where they didn't have to? What if they had people (as in you) who reminded them that they are loved whether they win or lose, succeed or fail, make the team or sit on the bench, get the A or get the C?

What if they had a place (like their home) where they could rest, recharge, laugh, breathe, and simply be themselves? Maybe that wouldn't make our kids less successful. Maybe it would actually give them the freedom and security they need to become who God created them to be, So, turn down the pressure. Give your kids room to breathe. Challenge them to do their best. Celebrate their effort and character more than their accomplishments. And remind them often that they don't have to perform to earn your love. They already have it.